Prerequisites

More talks on:

You've heard people rave about the benefits of pair programming - and you're curious, but a little skeptical. What is it really? How does it work? How long does it take to experience the benefits? Those are valid questions and we’ve put together a workshop to explain it, give you the right mindset, and let you experience the magic for yourself.

Eric and Neha are two software engineers at Pivotal Labs who work with clients on this every day! They pair program 8 hours a day and help their clients identify the right project, techniques, and practices to make it work. We want to share our learnings and mitigation techniques - the hands-on way. Attend our interactive workshop to learn more about the theory behind pair programming, practice applying new tools to improve your pair programming experience, and get a feel for what what successful pair programming feels like for you.

To do this, we will be pairing you up and taking you through three rounds of pair programming where you focus on a new persona each round: 1) on yourself, 2) on your pair, 3) on the system and help draw clearer lines of how these separate pieces interact. By the end, you will have paired and completed three programming exercises and experienced what pair programming feels like when it’s not going well and when it is.

Speaker: Eric Tsiliacos

Software Engineer @Pivotal

Eric Tsiliacos has been a software engineer at Pivotal Labs for the past four years. He studied Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley. He enjoys thinking about programming paradigms and metaphysics as well as writing music in his free time. He loves making people feel happy and making their lives better.

Find Eric Tsiliacos at

Neha Batra is a software engineer at Pivotal Labs who, 4.5 years ago, was an energy consultant and quit to teach herself programming because “it was time.” She holds a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and enjoys food, planning trips (and has overly comprehensive spreadsheets for her trips), and pronouncing GIFs how it should be: jiffs. If you want to hear her ramble on a topic, ask her about pair programming, tdd, or how she came around to agile processes, in general.